The Dark Lord's Right Hand 3
by Rumour of an Alchemist
Summary: One-Shot, providing a glimpse into an alternate universe; this one, one in which Lily Potter is dragged on the night of Hallowe'en, 1981, before the Dark Lord by his highest ranked lieutenant. Warning! Non-canon canon character.


Disclaimer: I am not J. K Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: The following is a one-off set in an alternate universe where at least one character has a different agenda from canon. Just to be on the safe side, this story is rated as Horror.

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"Albus Dumbledore," Hagrid said thoughtfully, "used ter be a great man."

Lily Potter couldn't believe it.

She'd seen James killed, and been dragged from her house in the middle of Hallowe'en night by Lord Voldemort, and hauled to the inner sanctum of the Death Eaters, and here Hagrid was, sitting in a huge carven oak throne, with Lord Voldemort grovelling before him. The grey stone walls of the room were hung with tapestries of giants at war with wizards and other smaller folk, and a huge log fire blazed in a fireplace midway along one wall. Other than Hagrid's chair, the room had a mixture of furniture in terms of tables and chairs, although most of it was plain and functional in nature. The large winged smoking chair, of plush red velvet, into which Lily had been unceremoniously dumped was about as elaborate as the rest of the furniture got. Various snapped wands were displayed on shelves or wall-brackets around the room, and although there were a number of brackets for torches or lanterns, the only illumination at present came from the fire. If there _were_ any windows or skylights, they and the darkness of the night outside were magically concealed.

Harry had been taken too. He was currently half-hidden in a large crib in a shadowy corner of the room. Lily could hear him still occasionally, but not see him. He'd been crying earlier during the attack on Godric's Hollow, but lapsed into silence now. After Lord Voldemort had presented Harry to him, Hagrid had placed him in the crib, and tucked him in, with the greatest of care, before returning to his seat.

Lily was occasionally able to make horrified 'mmphing' noises of protest at her situation, but given the almost suffocating dirty rag stuffed into her mouth behind a gag, and her hands being tied behind her, there wasn't a lot else she could do except wriggle in the depths of the chair into which she'd been dumped.

Hagrid was ignoring Lily's 'mmphs' for now and currently toying with Lily's wand, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"When he was younger, Albus _understood_ that the muggles needed keepin' in their places." Hagrid continued. "Take yer very own sister, Petunia, Lily. She's about one of the most muggly muggles to ever walk the face o' this green Earth, I reckon – and does she respect yeh, or give yeh due honour for bein' what yeh are? The heck she does!" Hagrid apparently noticed that this had caused Lily to freeze in her bonds and give him a _look_. "Ahhh, don' look at me like that, wonderin' at my interest in yer relations, Lily. Yeh were one of my favourites at Hogwarts, an' I always keep an eye out for the folks of my favourite pupils an' how they treat with each other. Anyhow, Petunia is the very best reason any witch or wizard worth their salt could want why witches an' wizards need to be on top an' rulin' the roost, with all the muggles havin' ter do as they're told an' not givin' themselves airs and graces above their stations. Muggles call us freaks an' worse, an' muggles behavin' like that's just not right, it isn't, it's just not right. Albus used ter understan' that, but I reckon havin' to fight his best mate Gellert cut him up a bit rough, an' he's never been the same since. That left the jobs which needed doin' to others, such as me an' Tom here."

Hagrid put aside Lily's wand for now, and rose from his seat to wander across and poke the fire, moodily, with a fire-iron shaped like a spear. Lord Voldemort remained prostrated on the floor all the time, Lily noticed, hardly daring to twitch, not even when a log shifted suddenly sending up a shower of sparks and spilling ash and embers out of the grate.

"Anyhow," Hagrid resumed his lecture, addressing the fire as much as Lily directly, "once me an' Tom had gotten past our little mutual misunderstandin' of the forties, when he got me expelled on account of Aragog, whilst coverin' up one of his own schemes, we realised we had the same agenda, an' he right kindly offered ter be my chief lieutenant on account of my not holdin' a grudge against him and bein' civil-minded over the wand-snappin' an' expulsion business." Hagrid glanced briefly at Voldemort, and for a moment Lily glimpsed a spark of half-recalled fury in Hagrid's eyes, and then he calmed himself, replaced the poker in the rack and returned to his huge chair to reseat himself. Hagrid once more took up Lily's wand. He flexed it a couple of times, then swished it through the air, sparks trailing from the tip.

"Willow. Springy. Good fer charms." Hagrid said thoughtfully. He put it down again. "It'll be a right shame, if I have ter break it. As nice a piece of Mr. Ollivander's work as one could wish for. So, me an' Tom reached an understandin', for which he was right grateful – an' I must say I doubt he could have organised or made use of my distant giant kinsfolk nearly so effectively on his own – and he gets ter do the work too risky for me ter do – which is most things, these days, on account of my not bein' able to openly declare myself yet. Things like removin' James Potter, an' invitin' yer here fer this nice little chat. Never could stand James meself. Prancin' round the school like some ruddy great stag, an' sniggerin' where he thought I couldn't hear him about my rock cakes. That wasn't polite or right, that wasn't. I was bein' hospitable, and you were always nice an' polite about my cakes, Lily. Which is why, after yeh declined to become folded into Tom here's organization for the _third_ time, once the prophecy came up James had ter go – 'go' bein' in the sense of bein' made dead – and I needed an urgent chat with yeh. Three's a magic number, yeh know." Hagrid said vaguely. "Wonderful things, magic numbers. Don't understand 'em much, but beyond the basics yeh don't _need_ to understand them unless yeh teach arithmancy or somethin'. Yeh declined Tom thrice so there wasn't much point, what with the prophecy needin' attention, ter him tryin' again with yeh. Yeh see, Harry there is a boy with a _very_ special destiny, I'm reckonin', and could be a valuable asset. Either that or he could be someone's lunch. There's a special giant way of dealin' with prophecies, yeh see, which is ter eat those involved, to destroy the prophecy an' take any power from it into one's self. Hence all those 'grind their bones' stories yeh hear about. But that's by-the-by. Anyhow, Lily, I'm _not_ goin' ter kill yeh, as I heard of the offer yeh made Tom, an' I'm not fool enough not to know a potential stickin' point of Old Magic when I hear it. If I have ter deal unpleasantly with Harry there, I have ter leave yeh alive, although that's not to say yeh wand will last, or that yeh won't become my _very_ long-term guest until this little local difficulty some folks are callin' 'the wizarding war' is over. An' given the prophecy I don't see any point ter _not_ dealin' with Harry unpleasantly, unless it's 'cos his mother's sworn to be my loyal servant, an' ter raise him to meet my specifications. Sorry, Lily, but that's the way it is. It's not much o' a choice, I know," Hagrid sighed, "but it's the way that things have to be, now." He looked her straight in the eyes. "Yeh're not goin' ter die by my hand nor Tom's, but little Harry's gotta go unless I can be certain yeh mean ter bring him up right…"

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Author Notes (may be updated depending on early reviews):

As I noted, this is an alternate universe, and one in which Rubeus Hagrid happens to be a significant mover and shaker, away from his 'day job' at Hogwarts. In this series of 'what if' glimpses into alternate universes, the notion of Hagrid as someone completely unlikely to be Voldemort's lieutenant interested me, and then the idea of switching the premise around for once so that Voldemort was the 'right hand' of (the Dark Lord) Hagrid just seemed to somehow fit...

As the writer 'Nothing Pretentious' observed in his story 'Lessons with Hagrid' (and others may have done before him) canon Rubeus Hagrid is apparently sufficiently good an occlumens (either by accident of birth or by training) that Quirrell/Voldemort has to go through the whole rigmarole of getting him drunk in a pub and letting him 'win' a dragon egg to loosen his tongue to find out how to get past 'Fluffy' in the first book in canon. If canon Hagrid could present that sort of problem to Quirrell/Voldemort, it seems an at least outside possibility that the darker Hagrid of this particular universe could manage to keep things secret from occasional legilimency by Albus Dumbledore (if Dumbledore even suspected this Hagrid's nocturnal activities). Especially since 'Tom' is essentially taking care of day to day business for him, and Hagrid only occasionally needs to stop by to oversee some matter of crucial importance.

Voldemort's motivations in this story might range from genuine fear/shared interests to believing that by feigning servitude he can play along with Hagrid and use him (and his giant contacts) and try to dispose of him later. At any rate, he is completely 'submissive' to Hagrid's plans for now.

As a final note, the (as of September the first, 2012) one-shot, 'Rock Cakes' (which features a further different Hagrid in a further different universe) came about whilst I was in the process of drafting this story.


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